OAKLAND — District 1 Councilman Dan Kalb is facing two challengers this election cycle in what has become the second most expensive council race this year, according to campaign finance records.
Vying for his seat is Steph Dominguez Walton, a mother and businesswoman with a background in TV and radio broadcasting who is campaigning against the “status quo,” and Tri Ngo, whose background is in engineering and who promised to limit campaign donations to $35 per person.
More than $166,000 from a variety of contributors has been collected for Walton’s campaign from construction labor unions, businesses and a variety of individual donors. The campaign for Kalb, who has been on the council since 2013, collected more than $134,000 from individual donors and some health care worker and service worker unions, according to campaign finance records. Ngo’s campaign is largely self-financed, according to public records.
All three candidates — like others in district council elections — list housing affordability, homelessness and policing as among the most pressing issues facing Oakland.
“Our housing crisis is more acute than ever,” Walton said. She notes that establishing basic services at encampments — showers, security and toilets, for instance — could help transition people to temporary and permanent housing.
Long term, she believes adding more housing — which the city could facilitate by adjusting the zoning code to allow more multifamily units — will help bring the costs down. She doesn’t think that Oakland’s tenant laws need more changes, but wants the existing ones enforced, and says the federal government must step in to provide assistance for both tenants and small business owners to help relieve the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kalb, too, says keeping encampments clean and managed is crucial and wants to increase the city’s commitment to Keep Oakland Housed, an effort that provides financial assistance and legal representation, among other services, to unhoused residents.
Kalb joined the rest of the City Council in approving a policy that dictates where people cannot camp — many areas such as schools and businesses are not allowed — and how the encampments must be maintained.
To make housing more affordable, Kalb supports strengthening tenant protections and encouraging more affordable housing. He also supports adding density along some transit corridors and to allow “some” re-zoning to allow for small multi-family residences close to BART stations, he said.
“I will continue to support efforts to work with our community land trusts, affordable housing nonprofits and community groups to get more below-market units preserved and build in our city,” Kalb said.
Ngo has a plan for relieving the homelessness crisis that includes keeping encampments managed and clean, helping unhoused residents find semi-permanent housing and partnering with nonprofits to provide social services. Support from the city for each person should last about two years, which he believes is a good time period for people to get job training or education and secure an income to transition to permanent housing.
When it comes to relieving the broader housing affordability crisis, Ngo favors encouraging a lot more development. He wants to change zoning to allow more density in most areas of Oakland, and to make it easier to build accessory dwelling units or convert homes to duplexes or multi-family residences.
As for police reform, which Ngo also lists as a pressing issue, he said the city needs to quicken 911 emergency response times, but also believes it’s necessary to reallocate some money from the police department toward addressing “mental health, substance abuse and issues of poverty.”
“Many residents are concerned about (the police department’s) effectiveness and others don’t feel safe in their presence,” Ngo said. “What we are currently doing isn’t working. We must address the root causes of violence in our communities instead of simply taking punitive measures. “
Walton said she favors lessening the “footprint” of the police department, wanting to redirect some of their responsibilities to others, such as responding to those experiencing mental health crises and enforcing minor traffic rules. A police budget reduction must not be arbitrary but “thoughtful,” Walton said, although she noted that she believes the council should have reduced the police budget by more than the $14 million it cut recently.
Kalb, meanwhile, likes the effort that is underway by Oakland’s Reimagining Public Safety Task Force to create a plan for reallocating police funding to other efforts. Kalb says he “strongly” supports the idea of creating an alternative first response to mental health-related or other calls for service.
He is a joint author — with City Council President Rebecca Kaplan — of Measure S1, which is asking voters to strengthen the police commission. That measure, if approved this November, would give the police commission the professional staff Kalb says it needs and make it more independent by allowing it to demand information from the police department and hire its own lawyers.
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Author: Annie Sciacca